Photography Lessons

DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg with Irfan

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Irfan with his Nikon D90 during our first DSLR Photography Lesson in St Petersburg

Choosing the Nikon D90 as your first DSLR is a great choice as it is a camera that allows for lots of growth with its ability to out of the box trigger a remote flash, allow settings changes by viewing its low power using top LCD as well as its dual control dials, all things no other DSLR under $1,000 has.  Irfan brought his D90 and two lenses for our first DSLR Photography Lesson on a very pleasant St. Petersburg evening, not too hot, not too windy.  

He also brought some knowledge of photography terminology (aperture, ISO).  We took what he knew and expanded on it during the lesson, plus of course adding a good bit more information too.  He seemed to absorb it all well.  

As always I showed proper and safe lens changing techniques and how to best hold a DSLR camera for maximum stability, which right off the bat makes you at least look like a pro shooter.  

I look forward to showing Irfan more off camera flash shooting techniques in future lessons, and perhaps even HDR photography! 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Nicole & her Nikon D5000

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    Nicole photographs the Walk For Autism with her new Nikon D5000

    The heat is on in Florida once again, so maybe my starting time for DSLR Photography lessons will soon need to be moved from 10am to 8am!  By the time I met Nicole for our first lesson we already found ourselves sticking to the shade anytime we were not shooting.  She recently purchased a Nikon D5000 with the two kit lenses, a good starting point for anyone interested in DSLR photography.  Unknown to us the Walk For Autism event was happening right where we were meeting.  This was a nice surprise as we had good subject matter for practicing street photography.  In the above photo you can see Nicole practicing using her medium telephoto 55-200mm lens and AF-C focus mode.  AF-C stands for auto-focus continuous which sets her D5000 to continually set a focus on whatever her focus point is on while she holds the shutter down half-way.  

    Nicole demonstrating good one knee shooting technique - holga effect in Silver Efex Pro 3 appliedOne of the first things I teach every DSLR Photography student is simple, solid, good camera holding technique, as soon in the above photo.  The left palm goes under the lens with the left thumb on the outside.  This way your elbows can be locked into your body.  For extra stability you can use the one knee technique.  I often rest one of my elbows on my knee as well.  

    Nicole was a fast learner to everything I showed her during the lesson, seemingly retaining most of it the first time!   

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Nicole & her Nikon D70s

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    Many of my DSLR Photography Lessons end in Vinoy Park with a portrait of the studentA very pleasant morning in St. Petersburg (i.e. minimal wind) greeted Nicole and I for our first DSLR Photography Lesson together.  She has had her Nikon D70s for awhile, even taking some online photography courses.  However, there is nothing like an photography lesson out in the field where you can get direct, real-time feedback.  

    Nicole has the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens, a very high quality for value lens.  I have the same lens myself so we began the lesson using that lens, which is great in low light, in the super bright late morning Florida sunshine.  The 50mm f/1.8D lens actually makes a pretty decent landscape lens when stopped down.  Of course it is great too at producing a very shallow DoF (depth of focus).  

    Nicole had not photographed any moving targets yet, so she switched to her Sigma 18-125mm lens and tried to get me in focus as I zig zagged across the history museum's front lawn.  Centering the subject when photographing a moving subject is ok to do composition-wise because you should be trying to fill the frame and keep up with the movement of the subject.  

    We had a lot of fun conversations during the lesson, not all of them restricted to photography.  I was interested to hear about the 10 acres of land Nicole lives on!  

    The end of the lesson covered, briefly, flash portrait photography.  Nicole has the same Nikon SB-600 Speedlight that I do, but unfortunately the D70s cannot remotely trigger an external flash so we just practiced with it on the hotshoe.  As always, it is fun to show students just how much of a difference flash makes in portraits even with lots of natural, front light on the subject. 

    I look forward to our next lesson when we will cover a few photography topics in more depth. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Henry & his Sony A230

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    Sunset as viewed from inside Vinoy Park sculpture during our DSLR Photography LessonHenry is the proud new owner of a Sony A230, my first time to teach a student with a Sony DSLR.  We met at the usual downtown St. Petersburg location, but at the unusual time of 5:45pm, which allowed us to have a bit of a sunset background (above photo) to practice with.  Henry is a former Canon film SLR shooter, but was looking to refresh his memory and get familiar with the larger number of settings a DSLR body offers than a SLR film body.  For sure there is no ISO button on a film camera!

    Demonstrating my "quick & dirty" technique for off camera flash - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens @ f/8 ISO 200 1/320th SB-600 Speedlight held off camera to the leftHenry had just bought a Sony brand strobe to go with his A230, which pleasantly surprised me as I love to practice flash photography with students.  I was impressed by the Sony A230's remote triggering abilities, being able to sync off camera at 1/500th of a second.  My Nikon D300 can only do 1/320th of a second using the built in commander mode.  

    I am starting to show more and more students how to do my "quick & dirty" off camera flash technique.  Basically, you just set your camera to remotely trigger the flash, hold it up and to the left as you see above, then make the best composition you can with just your right hand on your camera!

    If you are wondering why I broke my own rule and have a building coming out of Henry's head, I had to at least partially block the sun in order to be able to get a good exposure.  Plus I just thought it looked kind of cool with the sun over his shoulder.

    I look forward to our next lesson once Henry gets a Tamron 70-300mm lens.

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with old high school buddy Mark

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    The familiar downtown St Petersburg background - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th SB-600 Speedlight handheld off camera to the left

    Had a special DSLR Photography Lesson today which was part high school reunion as well.  Mark and I had not seen each other since we graduated, nearly 18 years ago!  We spent a good part of the lesson catching up on what we had been up to for nearly two decades woven in between lots of photography talk.  He just got a good deal on a Nikon D300, the same camera I shoot with.  We had nice sunny, though as usual blustery, weather.  

    It was of course easy for me to show Mark his way around his D300 as I can change many of the settings on mine without even looking.  We covered many of the usual settings for a first lesson (aperture, ISO, white balance, focus mode) and also dabbled a bit in exposure compensation for helping us shoot in harsh Florida sunlight.  

    Mark wanted to use the palm frond as a prop, here on this bench in Vinoy Park

    We ended up in Vinoy Park practicing off camera flash.  Mark even tried out my "quick and dirty" method of shooting.  As you can see in the above shot, Mark's head does not overlap with any background object nor is any background object sprouting from his head.  This is not a coincidence.  I shifted my position so that neither the tree nor the sculpture was touching Mark's head.  This is something to always look for when making a portrait.  

    I had a great time catching up with Mark and introducing him to his D300, and going for a little spin in his Jeep Wrangler.  I look forward to catching up more and meeting his family in the near future.

    DSLR Photography Lesson - Andy with his new Canon 7D

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    Andy takes aim at the Vinoy Hotel - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm - f/11 ISO 200 1/200th SB-600 Speedlight held off camera to the left

    I met new DSLR Photography student Andy in downtown St. Petersburg where we quickly got into an in-depth discussion about the settings on his newly bought Canon 7D.  Though there were a few settings we had some pause in finding, in the end we were able to master all the settings changes needed to shoot a wide variety of shots from landscapes, to portraits, to moving objects (including dive bombing pelicans!).

    Andy was a quick and eager learner and our lesson passed by very quickly.  We really only began to cover all the things his 7D can do, along with his very nice Canon 10-24mm ultra wide angle lens, as well as the 24-135mm kit lens that came with his 7D.  We have already booked our next lesson which will have a Mac lesson bookended onto it as well!  Yes, I also teach Mac & OS X 1-on-1 lessons.  

    Our first lesson was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to seeing the view from Andy's Indian Rocks Beach townhouse next week!

    DSLR Photography Lesson #3 with Danielle and her Nikkor 70-200mm lens!

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    Danielle proudly shows off her awesome Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm VR f/2.8G lens obtained at a good price, used, from Craigslist

    It has been nearly 2 months since our last DSLR Photography Lesson, and Danielle has made a major gear investment in that time.  She wanted to get a medium telephoto f/2.8 lens, so I kept my eye out on Craigslist for any deals.  Danielle ended up getting a great deal on one of Nikon's best lenses, the Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm VR f/2.8G from someone selling locally on Craigslist.  How she has a lens she can really grow into as she photographs sporting events for her son and maybe even makes a little money photographing the other kids on the team as well.

    She used her 70-200mm lens exclusively during the lesson where I showed her which focus settings I would use in various situations, and why.  The decisions to be made are of course to use single or continuous focus, but also the trickier choice of single point or multi-point focus.  Some pelicans around John's Pass Village were kind enough to volunteer to be fast moving models for us.  

    We ended the lesson by showing how great of a portrait lens the 70-200mm makes both in natural light and with an external flash.  I look forward to seeing what shots Danielle can make with her increasing photography skill set and of course with using her sweet 70-200mm lens!

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